Kids Vision

Why All Children Need an Optometric Exam (at 6 months and 4 years)

The American Optometric Association recommends all children have at least two visits to an optometrist prior to starting preschool: at 6 months old, and again at around age 3 or 4, in addition to any visits to address other concerns or injuries. At six months in age, babies can’t express concerns over their own vision, so it’s important to bring them in to check for proper development, eye tumors, blindness or partial blindness, and other diseases.

At three or four years old, your child’s social and academic life is beginning to take shape, and uncorrected vision can have a major impact on their ability to reach their potential including playing with other kids, participating in sports, and doing well in school. Just as your child learns to walk through the use of their legs, and speak with their tongues, the brain learns to see through the eyes. The longer a condition goes undiagnosed, the greater the impact on their ability to use their eyes in the long term.

School Eye Exams Aren’t Enough

It’s important for parents to realize that the pediatrician and schools generally are only concerned with basic screenings to check for serious and obvious problems. They will not be looking inside the eye, beyond basic structure. It’s up to parents to bring them in to an optometrist at 6 months and 3-4 years old to check for less-obvious problems.

A Kids’ Trip through the Office

In addition to the standard tests we give to our adult patients, we will be checking for color vision, eye coordination, and proper development. We’ll use two main tests for this:

Ishihara Test

The Ishihara test is commonly known for testing color blindness; you may have seen its design on shirts and online. It consists of 24 images that have a variety of numbers and shapes whose color contrasts with the rest of the diagram. For adults, we can ask them to read numbers, but for young children, we will ask them to trace the shapes. We use them to test for a variety of types of color blindness, including red-green, blue-yellow, and total colorblindness.

Stereo Vision Test (Stereopsis)

This tests how your two eyes work together to give three-dimensional vision. It’s given to kids who can speak basic sentences (“the bunny is jumping out”), and uses special red-and-green glasses to give the illusion of three-dimentionality to a book. They are asked to identify which images (dots, animals, etc.) have a 3D effect.

We’ve struggled with this communication, and apologize for it being a few days behind schedule. We wanted to be able to shout out boldly and loudly “Everything is back to normal! Come in and see us anytime! Please fill up our lobbies with your smiling faces!”. But. Alas. Our message of triumphant return needs to be shared a little bit softer, at a little bit slower pace, and with a few modifications that we too, do not love- but know are necessary. So here it goes:

In addition to urgent visits, we are back to providing routine eye care! It is amazing to help our patients see a little clearer, find contacts that feel a bit better, and choose new glasses that boost their style. We are, however, continuing to recommend that if you are in a high-risk group that you wait a little bit longer to see us for non-urgent visits. We will be here when this crisis calms. We want you to be here as well.

We continue to sanitize between each patient, disinfect all common areas hourly, and we’ve installed barrier shields on our front desks and on all equipment. Our staff is wearing masks, to help protect you, and we kindly ask that you do so for us as well. We have hand sanitizer and sinks with pleasant-smelling soap galore. All patients, and staff, are screened with a COVID-19 checklist, and temperature check upon entering. We are following all government recommendations for operating a business during a pandemic. Most importantly, we are vigilant about maintaining the health of our staff, and doctors, who deserve the safest working conditions possible during this unprecedented time. We ask for your patience, and understanding, as this has been challenging for our small business to navigate!

You will also find that we have longer available hours. We are starting our appointments, both in the clinic and the Optical, earlier in the day, and ending them later in the evening. This allows us to space out visits so that we can accomplish all of the above and provide social distancing as well. Broadway, Tanque Verde, and Douglas locations are offering Saturday hours. We are beyond excited to announce our beloved location in the Student Union of the University of Arizona reopens with a limited schedule tomorrow. The time has finally arrived to see your shining eyes again- and now we have extra individual time for each of you!

It’s difficult for us to express our gratitude for those of you that have reached out with words of encouragement, and we are beyond grateful for all that is returning to help us regrow this business that we love. 8 weeks of pause has been a challenge that could not be planned for, but can only be risen from. Please visit your favorite local boutiques, restaurants, and gyms when the time is right. Continue to reach out to friends and family as if there was nothing else to do because now we know they are what mattered when life got quiet. And most importantly, give yourself the gift of grace for days when this all feels a bit overwhelming, and know that we have confidence in you to persevere right along with us.

With renewed joy in providing the very best in eye care,
Drs. Schmitt, Nichols, Greiten, Hilde, Romero, and Roberts
Plus our amazingly intact through it all, always helpful, a joy to be around – APEC crew!